Intelligence storage equipment



March 28, 1961 E. P. G. WRlGHT 2,977,577

INTELLIGENCE STORAGE EQUIPMENT Filed July 5, 1957 Inventor 5.]? G. Wriqhi New ork, fN.X., acorpoiationof Delaware.

FiledJuly: 5, 1957, Ser. No. 670,102

Claims. priority, application. Great Britain July 13,1956

1. Claim. (Cl. 340-474).

This invention relates to electrical distributors or scanning-1 cigcuitn n p The main object of ,the. invention to. provide a static electrical distributor comprising a coordinate array of bistable devices. in which each cross-point in the. array comprises a-plurality of. bistable. devices,v and which corn.- prises horizontal. control. wires, vertical control wires,. and cross-point control Wires, whereby three degrees of distribution are available.

The above-mentioned and other features and objects of this invention and the manner of attaining them will become more apparent and the invention itself will be signer. to Internationalstandard Electric. Corporation,

Three pulse cycles are used, as; shown in; Figure 2.

Firstly. a cycle of two pulses t t which have durations, substantially equal to the spacesv between them and are Secondly, a cycle each pulse havinga duration staggered. with respect to each other. of three pulsesv c equal to the complete cycle of t pulses and the pulses c being. staggered withv respect to each other.

Thirdly, a cycle of three pulses. r ..r each pulse having a duration equal to the complete cycle of c pulses;

and the pulses being staggered with respect to each other.

The 1 pulse cycle is used for identifying the two blocks 5 and 6 of horizontal wires 3 in the store. The voltages of the'various pulses are adjusted, sothat each core will be. activated only. if 'threepulses, are; applied to it: a 2

pulse, a 0- pulse, and an r pulse.- In other words, it will take three simultaneous pulses to create coercive force suflicient' to change thestate of any core. When a pulse of the. 0 cycle is applied, for instance, to C while R is beingpulsed', then during the first half of that pulse,

namely: t the left hand core A is activated by 0 r and: ts simultaneously, while in: the second half. of the best understood by reference to the following description of an embodiment of the invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

Figure l is a circuit diagram of a ferrite core matrix distributor incorporating the invention; and

Figure 2 is a diagram of wave forms used to control the distributor.

In the drawing of Figure 1 the co-ordinate array 1 of lines on the right hand side indicates vertical and horizontal wires 2 and 3 threading individual ferrite toroids one of which is assumed to be located at each crossing point of the vertical and horizontal wires.

The individual toroids 4 may in fact be constituted by discrete volumes of ferrite within a block of ferrite, operating wires 2 and 3 passing through each said discrete volume. It will be seen that the horizontal wires 3 are in two blocks 5 and 6 of nine wires each, both crossed by the vertical wires 2. The ferrite'distributor 7 on the left-hand side of the drawing gives access to the wires 3 of each block 5 and 6 of horizontals. In other words, the wires 3 are the output wires of the distributor 7. The

' distributortoroids 8, which may also be individual cores or constituted by a single block, are arranged to scan the two blocks 5 and 6 of horizontal wires 3 in two successive time periods which form a cycle, which can be third rows having corresponding pairs. Three vertical wires VC VC VC thread the toroids of the three columns; that is, each wire thread six toroids in all.

Three horizontal wires R R R respflctively thread all the six toroids of the three rows. B B and C -C are threaded by the wire R In addition two sub-cycle wires Ti and T each thread one toroid of each pair. It will be seen that wire T passes down the left-hand three toroids and then up between the second and third columns, threading in turn six toroids, three from each of the second and third columns. Likewise the wire T passes down the right hand three toroids (which are those not threaded by the wire T and up between the first and second columns, threading the adjacent six toroids of the first and second columns (which are those not threaded by the wire T For instance A -A I,

sub-cycle namely t the right hand core A is simultaneously pulsed by r t In this way, by suitable pulse arrangement, sub-cycles can be applied in turn to the first wires, the second wires, the third wires, and so on, of the two blocks 5 and 6 in sequence. Other arrangements of pulse cycles could give dilferent distribution. It will be seen that the second vertical wire 2 from the left in the array 1 only crosses the lower block 6 of horizontal wires. This is to indicate that any such variation in the arrangement of the coordinate array can be made for special purposes.

The third vertical wire is also confined tothe lower block, but it will be seen that at this point the upper block of horizontals has been split and the two halves separately bracketed with lines drawn downwardly from the brackets towards the vertical in question. This is'to indicate that the top block of wires, as Well as the lower block, are threaded through the toroids at the intersection of the third vertical wire and the lower block of horizontals. Thus the top wire of each block will pass through the top toroid in the third column, the second wire through the second toroid, and so on. In this way a toroid in the third column can be operated from either block of horizontals and each toroid in this column will be operative throughout a cycle 1 t While the drawing shows two. blocks of horizontals, additional blocks of horizontals can be provided by adding additional toroids to each of the pairs of toroids A A B B etc. in the distributor, so that the pairs become groups containing 3, 4 toroids.

The vertical and horizontal wires would still be threaded through every toroid in every group forming part of the columns and rows of groups. But the t-cycle, equal in length to a 0 pulse, would be divided into a number of parts x (instead of 2 only) equal to the number of blocks of horizontal wires in the main store and a corresponding numberof t wires will be provided and threaded each through a corresponding one of the toroids of each group.

It will be seen that in this way a coordinate array of magnetic toroids is arranged to pulse in turn all the first wires of x blocks of horizontals in a 2 cycle of x pulses per cycle, as the first Wire in block 6 from A lower and the first wire in block 5 from A upper during the simul- I taneous occurrence of pulses c r then to pulse all the second wires of the blocks, as the second wire in block 6 from B upper and the second wire in block 5 from E lower during the simultaneous occurrence of 0 r;.,, and so on in an overall recurring cycle the period of which is 5 times that of the t cycle, in which y is the number of wires per block'and equals pxq, where p is the number ensued Mar. 28, 1 961 of pulses in the c c pulses in the r r cycle.

It will be seen that the drawing shows a coordinate array of bistable devices, which, as illustrated, are ferromagnetic cores, in which a plurality of devices are provided at each cross-point, e.g. A A B B and control wires of three types are provided, vertical e.g. one per column; horizontal, e.g. one per row; and crosspoint, eg one per device in each cross-point.

While the principles of the invention have been described above in connection with specific embodiments, and particular modifications thereof, it is to be clearly understood that this description is made only by way of example and not as a limitation on the scope of the invention.

What is claimed is:

Static electric distributor comprising a coordinate array of bistable magnetic toroids in which each crosspoint comprises a plurality of bistable magnetic toroids, a plurality of horizontal control wires, there being one for each horizontal row of cross-points, each horizontal control wire being electrically coupled to each of the bistable toroids at each cross-point of its associated row, a plurality of vertical control wires, there being one for each vertical row of cross-points, each vertical control cycle, and is the number of wire being electrically coupled to each of the bistable toroids at each cross-point of its associated row, a plurality of cross-point control wires, there being one for each bistable toroid at a cross-point, each cross-point control wire being coupled to corresponding bistable toroids in each vertical row of cross-points, an independent output winding in each toroid, means for energizing said horizontal control wires in succession, means for energizing said vertical control wires in succession, and means for energizing said crosspoint wires in succession, said energizing means arranged to operate so that a first plurality of control wires is successively energized during the energization of each control wire of a second plurality T of control wires, and said second plurality of control wires is successively energized during the energization of each control wire of a third plurality of control wires,

whereby all the toroids are successively driven from a V particular bistable condition to the other.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 

